In the New World Order, Microsoft's Biggest Competition is IT

On the surface, for Microsoft to do well and be successful at recovering business, they must learn to compete with companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple. Recent acquisitions, product updates, and company overhauls are all intended to get the old software company back on track. Reimagining Microsoft means shedding the software characteristic of yesteryear and anchoring a new image as a Devices and Services company. Microsoft wants to make devices and it wants to sell services. All of that is dependent on the Microsoft Cloud.

But, for this to actually work, Microsoft also has to alter how things have generally been done. Microsoft has a large speed bump on the way to glory that has to be eliminated before companies will move to the Cloud en masse. That speed bump is IT.

In Microsoft's Next Major Acquisition, I talked about how Microsoft has been looking for just the right moment over the past decade where they could literally supply complete IT services for every business out there. Technology has evolved, the Cloud has become ever-present, and Microsoft believes the time is right.

Since Microsoft announced it was "all in" with the Cloud, it has worked and toiled to get IT on its side about the Cloud, through conferences, webcasts, whitepapers, and other events and content. But, IT keeps fighting the Cloud. IT is stuck in the old ways of doing things.

Hmm…why do I keep thinking I'm somehow relating all of this to the Clone Wars, when the Empire hunted down and eliminated the Jedi?

For Microsoft to truly achieve its vision, and to be able to compete directly with Google, Amazon, Apple, and others, its largest competitor must be eliminated. In truth, Microsoft's largest competitor is IT. IT is keeping Microsoft from its vision of complete and total Cloud dominance, and of course, keeping it from revenue. IT still likes to work within the confines of the local network and casts a careful eye on data that passes outside of the corporate structure. On-premise solutions just don’t fit Microsoft's new model. Try as it might, Microsoft has not been able to make its Cloud message stick with IT. The messaging didn't work, so the message is no longer for IT. In the grand scheme, IT was supposed to be Microsoft's own Cloud migration army, doing the work for them until the army was no longer needed. However, migrating apps and services to the Cloud means job elimination for many and those smart enough to realize it are deliberately dragging their feet on the Cloud.

When a company looks to enter a market or sustain business there, one of the first things they look at is the competition. What will it take to compete? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the competition? What's the best way to take advantage of the weaknesses to gain dominance? Each competitor is different so a different plan would be required for each.

So, for IT, how would Microsoft go about eliminating this type of competitor? Hypothetically, if I were trying to do it covertly, I might do something like eliminate a valuable IT subscription service, which removes access to old and new products for learning and labs. I might also, suddenly and without much warning, kill a certification or two and promise to revamp the service in the future. Eventually, I would abolish a few of the more popular, larger conferences where IT Pros attend to gain knowledge and network with colleagues. The intent is not necessarily like Paul suggests in Does Microsoft Hate IT Pros? Instead, Microsoft may be attempting to dry up IT by eliminating learning opportunities, resources, and community – or, at least through making learning extremely hard to obtain. The harder it is to do a job, the easier it is to get frustrated and give up. Microsoft certainly doesn't hate IT, they just feel they are competing with IT for control over companies' Cloud dollars. The only thing standing in the way of Microsoft and success is IT. It's not emotional, it's just business.

This is not the end of this commentary. Truly it's just the beginning. In a few weeks I'll be able to add more. Check back.

Discuss this Article 16

To all Microsoft blind lovers you got what you asked for. Once monopoly is in they are in the driving seat. Note if your knowledge set is vertical best of luck. In the Cloud world this will not get you far.

So, the solution is to let Google take over everything. As much as people want to talk about Microsoft's old ways and the all the talk of Monopoly, were consumers really hurt any? Maybe Microsoft could have move a little faster with innovation, but Microsoft is still going to dominate the PC world no matter what, and they will always have competition in other markets.

I don't think so. Microsoft is still going to work to offer the best solutions. Google has a couple things going against it that are insurmountable, IMO. First, they will never stop reading your data and using your online habits to serve ads. That's how they make their money. Secondly, Google doesn't even care about IT. Part of their marketing strategy to business is to tell them how bad IT is.

Cloud isn't a solution for every implementation (yet). There are still many issues or configurations that would need to evolve before the Cloud could truly take over. Businesses that work with Federal or Military operations are one thing. Some of those are very sensitive and require an on premise walled off network. Though that is more of an exception.

However, the article is right in spirit. Today's IT tech is tomorrows Cable Repairman. You can either anticipate this change and adapt or not.

Your article is off-base. IT people aren't intentionally dragging their feet to slow the demise of their own jobs. That's a fairly serious and frankly, kind of absurd accusation.

IT departments aren't migrating to the cloud for a number of reasons:
* The biggest and most important reason is that cloud hosting is *almost always* significantly more expensive. Unless you upgrade to every version of an on-premise product, it costs a lot less and make a lot more sense from an implementation time perspective to purchase and implement every *other* version. What are the differences between Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2013, Office 2010 and Office 2013 or Windows Server 2003 and 2008? Answer: Not much. Cloud hosting costs too much money.
* IT departments often already have excellent, reliable on-premise virtualization stacks. IT has already drastically reduced costs by buying far fewer servers, lowered power and cooling needs inside data centers and increased stability, recoverability and disaster recovery in the process. Many of these virtualization stacks have been created in the last three to five years, and are serving the needs of the organizations just fine.
* Many businesses can't pay for the bandwidth necessary to connect to the cloud. I have gigabit Ethernet connections to my servers. Any idea what a gigabit connection to the Internet costs? In addition, smaller businesses with branch offices often have even *slower* internet connections than headquarters. If my server connection speed drops by a factor of 10 or more, what does that do to my performance when I have 100, 200 or 500 people hitting that server?
* As The Duke mentioned, some organizations have security or regulatory concerns with storing data off-site.
* I no longer have control of my data or physical access to backups off-premise. There can be trust issues when on one hand, you know all of your data is in a case in a local off-site bunker somewhere (in addition to a cloud or second site backup), versus data sitting in the cloud and hoping the provider doesn't get hacked or make a mistake that affects your company's data.
* There are apps that continue to not support virtualization. Siebel was like this until very recently. There's no choice in that case.

That's not to say the Cloud won't eventually replace on-premise IT. It will, to a large degree. But IT people aren't dragging their feet because they see their jobs going away. They're dragging their feet mostly because budgets are constrained and companies aren't going to approve spending additional money for a marginal improvement to infrastructure.

I think you're taking offense to a portion of the article and not the article as a whole. You make some very good and valid points, and I will be the last to argue with those. However, there truly are those that are dragging their feet - on purpose. Microsoft pushes, IT pushes back. So, I'd suggest adding that in to help complete your bullet list (which is awesome, btw). Keep in mind, too, that your costs assume that IT still exists after migrating apps and services. Microsoft is working to eliminate the need for the IT Pro function. Without a team of IT Pros, the cost of "hosting" makes a lot more sense.

I agree with most everything, except where you say that the Cloud will replace on-premise IT. It won't. Tell me how a hospital moves its full application infrastructure to the cloud, with HIPPA, etc in play and ensures privacy and full responsiveness to all applications and services? How about manufacturing moving all CAD and CNC applications and machines to the cloud?

In my opinion, the cloud can own the small business that does "office" processing or other light duty. But as said, how much does internet cost to move data back and forth? "Ok, so we'll have a local file and print server for JUST those. Oh and we have 35+ desktops now...we really need to get a handle on those...and the printers..."...and so on until you have an IT department handling IT again. Certain services may straddle (the Hybrid is really the only model that might work), but so many things will HAVE to be local for usability.

How expensive are cloud servers? Oh that's right, its rather difficult to quote since they're pricing models are just silly. Give me one application that is fully resource intensive (heavy SQL processing for Stock analysis with giant datasets, huge ram and CPU processing needs) and tell me how much that would cost as a cloud server?

Let's also keep in mind that "users" will always need someone to ask questions of and hold their hands and fix things for them. Even if much/most of the infrastructure is "in the cloud", IT will still be needed to support users.

Obviously I'm a bit fired up about this, but people love to scare us that the sky is falling and I've been analyzing this very problem, but then I realized...we're all just human and things quickly get complex despite the new hotness. Each new gadget is supposed to make our lives easier; does it really or do the problems just morph into something else to be solved and managed.

If Microsoft biggest competition is IT?
Then I believe Microsoft will destroy itself eventually.
Because IT managers & IT Pros will see Microsoft only thinking about itself and not about the people that have supported Microsoft for the last 30 years.

The Cloud is a nice idea if you're in a building and you have the cash for a realistic connection with the needed speed. If the Cloud is so good and such a good idea why is XP refusing to die even in light of MS saying they will no longer support it as well as why, for a price, are they still planning to support it ?

Some of us in IT aren't afraid of the cloud - we just saw no reason to stick with Microsoft's ham-handed attempts at it. Google started offering a basic office suite, and what was Microsoft's initial response? Its own cloud office... that still required users to own a copy of the desktop Office suite.

Even now, Microsoft's cloud offerings seem to come with significant limitations unless your users are all-in with Windows. But that's not the way the world is anymore - people have moved on. Not everyone has a personal computer... and those who do may not be using Windows anymore.

I agree that that's a very real scenario. More and more I'm hearing from folks who are looking outside the Microsoft box because they are unhappy with Microsoft's direction. That there should be a huge wake-up call.

I think a point is missing when talking about connection speeds to the cloud. That is that all of the VMs talk to each other over the memory bus of the host, and only results need be transmitted over the Internet. If all of the servers are within the same public hosted cloud (Azure), then only key strokes, & mouse clicks need to be transmitted up and only pixels need to be returned to the client.
Only a hybrid mode of mixed on premise and in cloud servers would need high speed connection. MS is promoting a private “on premise” cloud using System Center products for standing up a “service” of virtual machines.

One thing that is sure in all of this: "The Cloud" is a disruptive technology that most IT departments are still trying to figure out. As with all capabilities, there are "good" and "bad" IT departments and everything in between. If Microsoft can support organizations better than the left half of the capability bell curve, then they can take over huge swaths of the IT world. The problem for those organizations is that moving back or forth is expensive, so they can get trapped into a model that just doesn't work for them. That captive set of customers becomes Microsoft's cash cow customers. Even with poor services and support, they are stuck there.

However, there's a lot that Microsoft must do to make this work as they try to assimilate IT departments toward the middle or right on the bell curve. They need to have *better* services than those IT departments can provide. So far, the Office365 service hasn't been providing that. Many organizations that move there are dissatisfied and some are moving back. “World class” service or “financially backed SLAs” mean nothing when your email is down or you can’t access SharePoint for weeks on end because an API is broken (http://www.jeremythake.com/2013/09/office-365-sharepoint-online-the-problems-service-updates-breaking-apis/) or migrated data isn’t accessible (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/msonline/en-US/639cfdf1-1e48-4cda-8917-f0b83e9192b9/office-365-support-is-not-up-to-the-task). Getting your money back for that downtime doesn’t cover even the most basic lost revenues or increased costs. At least in-house, one can fire someone; in The Cloud, no one hears you scream.